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A Taino Origin Story

Friar Ramó n Pané was the first European to record an origin narrative of Native Americans. Pané, a Franciscan priest, accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World and lived among the Taino Indians on the island of Hispaniola, site of the present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti. The following excerpt from Pané's report to Columbus in 1498 reveals the views of Pané's Taino informants as well as Pané's own perspective as a Catholic priest and a Spaniard.

Ramó n Pané

On Taino Religious Practices

When in 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Hispaniola, among the other things reported was that the people of that island did not worship anything other than the heavens, planets, and stars. But after living there and learning the [Taino] language, they became familiar with those people and observed that they had various ceremonies and customs, as did the hermit friar, Ramó n [Pané] . . . [who came] from Rome to that island in order to instruct and convert the islanders to our Christian faith. He composed a book about their customs, many of which will be related in this letter.

First, they say that there appear at night on that island certain phantasms and visions of which they senselessly make certain simulacra [idols] which they gather together to worship; seated on the ground on blankets of cotton-wool they carve certain good demons, just as among us there are sculptors. The simulacra are called zemis, and they worship them as eternal gods; they say that there are two, that is, one called Iocauna, and the other elder one, Guamaonocon. These are said to have five mothers. ...

There is a region of that island which is called Caunana, where they say humankind first issued from grottos in two mountains, that is, the greater part from the larger cave, and the lesser part from the smaller cave. ... The first to issue from that [smaller] cavern was called Machochael, who guarded the opening every night. He once went out a short distance and saw the sun at dawn, and since he was unable to endure that light, was transformed into a stone. In the same way many others who went out at night from that cavern to go fishing and who were unable to return before the sun rose, upon seeing that light, as punishment since they were not permitted to see it, were immediately transformed into those trees which yield plums. These grow spontaneously on that island in great quantity, without being planted.

They also tell of a ruler named Vaguoniona, who sent his servant out of that cavern to go fishing; that servant, since he was unable to return before the sun rose, was transformed into a nightingale. Ever since then, during the night and in the same season in which he was transformed into a bird, he sings and laments his bad fortune and asks for help from his master Vaguoniona. It is for this reason that they say the nightingale sings at night.

Afterwards Vaguoniona, who greatly loved his servant, left the cave, bringing forth only the females with their nursing children; they went to an island not far from there which is called Matininó ; there he left the females and brought back with him the little children. Afterwards, having been abandoned near a little river, they began to cry, uttering "toa, toa," that is, "mamma, mamma," so that they were changed into frogs. This is the reason they say that in the spring those frogs begin to sing.

They say that men came out of those caverns in this way and spread throughout Hispaniola, without their women. They also say that Vaguoniona wandered about among different places and, by special grace, was never transformed, except by a beautiful female whom he saw in the sea. He descended into the sea and received from her certain marble pebbles which they call cibas, as well as certain little golden tablets which are called guaninos. These gems, to this day associated with their kings, are held in reverence as sacred things.

The men who had remained in the cave without their females came out during the night, after washing themselves in ditches where a large amount of rainwater had gathered (and still today they use those baths). As soon as they had come out, it is said, they raced to the plum trees, upon which an infinite number of ants had gathered; they grasped them [the ants] with their hands, as if they were so many females, and when they squeezed them they slipped out of their hands like eels. They went to seek counsel from elderly counselors, and they went to see if there were any men who might have scabies or leprosy or who might have calloused, rough hands with which they could easily hold the ants. Those men are called caracaracoles; thus they went to hunt them, and although they captured many [caracaracoles], they were nevertheless unable to keep more than four, which they used as females. They say they had no genitals, and for this reason it is said they returned to the elders for counsel; consequently they sent them the woodpecker, who, with his sharp beak, opened the genitals between the thighs of those females, and the others descended from there. ...

Thus, in this way, their wise men, with gravity and reputation, from bowers and eminent places, instruct these simple islanders and persuade them to believe such things as these to be sacred and true.

Concerning the origins of the sea, they say there was a very powerful man named Iaia on that island, who killed his only son, whom he placed in a gourd instead of in a fabricated tomb. Later, this Iaia, after having passed many months troubled by the death of his son, returned to that gourd and opened it, and a great whale issued forth. ... Drawn by the report of this, four youths, born of a single birth, in the hopes of obtaining the fish within the gourd, took it in their hands. Iaia, who had enclosed the bones in the gourd, came upon them; the youths, frightened at their sacrilege, and to avoid being accused of that robbery by Iaia, tried to flee. The gourd, because of its great weight, fell upon the ground and broke, and the sea escaped through the cracks. The sea flowed down the valleys and across the great plains nearly filling them, except for the peaks of mountains and high places that were left uncovered, which created the islands which can presently be seen.

They also say that those brothers, for fear of Iaia, fled to different places and were dying of hunger, for they did not have the courage to stop. They went to knock at the door of a baker, asking for cassava, that is, bread. Entering the house, they spat at the baker a deadly spit that killed him. Those brothers, after a discussion, opened him up with a sharp stone, and out of that wound a female was born, and those brothers slept with her together, and both males and females were the result.

In addition to these things, they say there is a cave which is called Iovanaboina . . . which is for them a more religious place than Santiago de Compostela is for us. It is adorned with many different paintings and has two doors sculpted to represent their demons, the zemis, one of which they call Bintaitalle, the other Marochum. When we asked them why they worship that cave with such devotion, they said that the sun and moon issued forth from there to illuminate the world. These senseless men affirm these things with great gravity, and there is as great an affluence of people coming and going from that cave as there is in our churches and at the great pilgrimage places. ...

When they were asked by our men where they learn those vain customs (which are a pestilence among them), they answer that they have been handed down from their ancestors; and that it is not permitted to teach such things . . . except to the sons of the kings; and that they never had writing among them and everything is preserved by memory.

From Geoffrey Symcox and Luciano Formisano, eds., Italian Reports on America, 1492-1522: Accounts by Contemporary Observers, trans. Theodore J. Cachey Jr. and John C. McLucas, Repertorium Columbianum 12 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002), 63-68.